The only way for a small-sized business to grow profitably is to encourage customers to share feedback and then work on the received feedback. Customer feedback can inform the company on the areas that it can work on, to address customer needs, and improve customer satisfaction.
Small-sized businesses and startups tend to struggle with their budget and may not have the advanced research tools that more established companies possess to study customer behavior. A well-written survey can help obtain much the same information at a much lesser cost to the company.
Below, we share tips on how your small business can develop surveys that will help it mold itself according to the customer’s requirements and improve your profitability in the long run.
How to create an effective survey for your startup
When you’ve decided to create a survey to obtain valuable customer data, you need to keep a few things in mind. What are these things? Find out below.
1. Determine the purpose of your survey
Surveys are conducted for a variety of reasons. The information obtained via a study can be used for research and development or market research or even to increase your company’s customer engagement.
You may use a survey to figure out the aspects of your company’s functioning that need improvement, according to the customer. You can use it to recognize the primary traits of a profitable customer lead. Similarly, you could also use a survey to measure customer satisfaction.
When you are clear about your survey’s objective, you can ask targeted inquiries instead of littering your review with unnecessary questions that do not provide you with any actionable data. You can also keep the survey short, ensuring that the survey participant does not lose interest mid-way.
2. Ask the right questions well
Surveys can help you gather subjective, as well as objective data. You can ask the survey participant to provide you with demographic data such as gender, age, hometown, or you can ask them more subjective questions on their interests and hobbies.
It is also essential that you pay attention to how you ask your survey questions to get the best results. For example, you can ask your customers to rate their satisfaction on a numerical scale and use an open-ended format for subjective questions.
Another consideration to bear in mind is where the customer happens to be, with regard to your sales funnel. If they are at the top of your sales funnel, you can ask them about company-customer engagement. However, if they are still in the middle, questions that study their buying behavior may be a better idea.
3. Test your survey in-house before releasing it to the customers
You can use a free survey creator such as TypeForm, AidaForm, or Google Forms. If you have the budget for it, CRM software can also help you develop surveys.
Once you’ve built your study, share it with friends, family, and co-workers and ask for their feedback. You want to keep an eye out for spelling or grammatical errors, as also, confusing questions that throw off your participant. Identify and correct errors before uploading it live. You will not be able to rectify mistakes once you’ve published your survey for the customers.
4. Encourage customers to participate
You need to motivate customers to participate in your poll and minimize any friction. If possible, incentivize their participation by throwing in rewards and recognition. The longer the survey, the bigger the prize you must offer. Setting a deadline for the study to be completed also creates a sense of urgency among your participating customers, who will feel more inclined to finish it soon.
Friction refers to all the impediments that deter a participant from completing the survey, once they’ve started. Keep the number of questions at a minimum and explicitly state the amount of time your survey will take to conclude at the beginning.
Customers will not feel fatigued this way. You may also want to include more set responses for questions. It will give you more precise data that will be easier to analyze than answers received from open-ended questions.
Once you’ve built your small business a survey to gain customer information, share widely. Post it on all your social media pages, send existing customers an email, place a link on your website and merchant seller page, and what have you!
You can then use the information collected from this survey to make data-driven changes to your business, which will help its marketability, functioning, and profitability.
